I closed on the house mid-April, and my lease ended on the apartment this week. I never understood why people pour so much time and money into their houses, but I find I am compelled to change certain things about the house to the way I want them.

So far I’ve changed the outdoor locksets and started on the window treatments and ceiling fans.

I don’t think I’m going crazy spending, but I feel the need to get the entry/exit, window views and fans the way I want them. Everything else can be a slower process.

I’m on Twitter as @myjimnelson. To my surprise, I like it and use it, while Facebook I hardly log into anymore.

Interest rates are down, prices are down, I’m in a decent financial position, and my current plans are to stay in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for at least several years. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a house for 3-5 years, but in the past year I’ve been a little more serious, and now I have a contract on a house that will close in mid-April.

So I’m a single guy moving from a one-bedroom 750 sq ft apartment to a 3-bedroom, 2½-bath, 2-living area 1928 sq ft house with a 2-car garage, covered driveway, two extra boat/rv concrete pads and storage shed. The apartment suddenly feels small.

In 2010 I spent a few months on a project that was overnight work, so I was in-town but working odd hours. Then for a couple of months this year I was traveling again. So I haven’t really settled into a routine of any sort.

For the past 1-3 months I’ve had no routine, and there is no routine in sight for the next month. I spent three weeks of December traveling for my previous project, but that should be over now. Then there were holidays, and on-call for me including working 11 hours on New Year’s Day, throw in a couple of weeks on-site with another client, and now two weeks of vacation and a week of out-of-state training are coming up.

My savings goals were recently fulfilled, so with all the change happening I am at a point in my life where I have no short-term or medium term goals and no routine. Sometimes I feel a little lost or like I’m failing at something, but then I realize I’m pretty much where I want to be and just need to get used to being home again. For the past two years home has been where I wash clothes, replenish toiletries, visit family, repack for the next week and try to rest before leaving again. So I need to get used to keeping the place cleaned up and then getting out and enjoying myself more. It’s funny how you can forget how to do that after a year or two.

I am changing job duties so I’ll be local most of the time, albeit driving around a lot. Coincidentally I expect to reach a savings goal next paycheck. So no debt, and I have my retirement and after-tax savings in the shape I want them. Now I need a new savings goal, or maybe I should just spend it all on booze and women and then waste the rest.

I won’t have much if any overtime, but I’ll be at home and working days and capable of having a life again. Things are looking good.

2006 doesn’t sound like very long ago, but heck it’s been just about 3 years since I moved back, and I’ve been working and in my apartment for over 2 years now.

I’m not thrilled with my current assignment. I travel all the time and have almost no life. On the other hand I get lots of overtime and apparent job security. I just paid off the car I bought in late 2007 and am now debt-free again.

This past week I was working locally, and today I finally felt at-home enough to straighten the place up and rearrange a little bit. It’s been quite a while since home was more than a room I stay at two nights a week.

Well, as it turns out there aren’t a whole lot of options right now, and just because I work for an outsourcing company doesn’t mean everything is fat and happy. Anyway, I’m traveling again, and it’s steady and apparently reliable work for the rest of the year.

I finally got around to taking the Network+ exam today and passed with flying colors. I had been putting off studying for it for too long and finally decided I could probably pass it without studying, and I did. I had to pay for it myself, but hopefully it’s worth it in the long run.

It looks like I’m going to be on the same extended-hours, lots-of-travel project this year as there aren’t any other secure projects available now. So I guess I’d better enjoy being at home during January because it’s going to be another long year. At least I’ll be getting lots of overtime.

I’m about to take off for one of the last two weeks of this work project. The project doesn’t start up again until February, but I’m doubting I’ll go for it again if I have other choices. The travel sucks all my free time away. I may be doing field dispatch support, but I’m hoping to get on another project or perhaps go onsite with another client.

I suppose I could worry about job security about now, but I think the current economy benefits my security as my employer is the place companies will come to after laying off their own staff and realizing they actually do still need some support.

I had made a MySpace account a while back for some reason or other but never kept up with it. Recently though I joined Facebook, and various people from my past are finding me there.

I just gained the CompTIA PDI+ certification for printers and document imaging. Not my favorite topic, but it helps keep me employed.

I’ve been wanting to toy with IPv6 for a while, and I think the time is right. I want to be familiar with it as I expect companies to start going to it more and more as the government and foreign nations transition. It’s still hard to get it natively from normal ISPs, but I just signed up at SixXS hoping to get onto the IPv6 network via their tunneling POPs.

So with any luck this site may be available in IPv6 sometime soon.